Walden Two

♠
The competitive talents which have made man pre-eminent - right up to the invention of the atomic bomb - aren't enough for the step he must take next. Being competitive, they are incompatible with the good of all mankind. Man's superior endowment has emerged from a struggle for survival and that fact has left its beastly mark. Those who survive have destroyed, and they have not survived unscathed. We justify our genius for warfare by arguing that we should otherwise have been destroyed, but that's only another way of saying that we want our own way. And our success encourages us to be more and more aggressive. By its very nature the struggle to survive cannot give birth to a noncompetitive intelligence.

-- Walden Two by B. F. Skinner

This charming ideal, of course, hangs on the question of human nature. Arguably, it would be harder to cut out the competitive and domineering nature of man than to see how he could live without his heart. Or maybe we are still growing and learning, which I still find an enchanting thought. At any rate, such an egalitarian vision made its mark on my moral vision, even as I accepted that we remain locked in a Hobbesian war of all against all.

xXx

Walden Two

♠
The competitive talents which have made man pre-eminent - right up to the invention of the atomic bomb - aren't enough for the step he must take next. Being competitive, they are incompatible with the good of all mankind. Man's superior endowment has emerged from a struggle for survival and that fact has left its beastly mark. Those who survive have destroyed, and they have not survived unscathed. We justify our genius for warfare by arguing that we should otherwise have been destroyed, but that's only another way of saying that we want our own way. And our success encourages us to be more and more aggressive. By its very nature the struggle to survive cannot give birth to a noncompetitive intelligence.

-- Walden Two by B. F. Skinner

This charming ideal, of course, hangs on the question of human nature. Arguably, it would be harder to cut out the competitive and domineering nature of man than to see how he could live without his heart. Or maybe we are still growing and learning, which I still find an enchanting thought. At any rate, such an egalitarian vision made its mark on my moral vision, even as I accepted that we remain locked in a Hobbesian war of all against all.

xXx